Monthly Archives: October 2014

What happens when you get drunk and kill Putin’s friend with your snow plow?

Total CEO’s jet crashed on take-off in Moscow with Vladimir Martynenko, the unlucky guy who happened to drive his snowplow across the runway as Total CEO Christophe de Margerie’s executive jet was preparing to take off from the VIP terminal at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport last night. Three French crew members also died when the French-made Dassault Falcon 50 burst into flames after it hit the snow plow during takeoff from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport at 11:57 p.m. Monday local time. The Vnukovo airport is used by Russian government officials, including President Vladimir Putin, and visiting foreign leaders. Video from the scene showed the charred plane lying on a grassy field. Though it had snowed earlier in the day, it was unclear how much snow remained at the airport at the time of the crash. De Margerie, 63, was a regular fixture at international economic gatherings and one of the French business community’s most outspoken and recognizable figures. His trademark silver handlebar earned him the nickname “Big Mustache.” Laurence Parisot, a friend of de Margerie’s and the former head of France’s business lobby Medef, called him an “immense Frenchman” with “a love of life, laughter and the pleasures of the table.” Under his leadership, Paris-based Total claims it became the fifth-largest publicly traded integrated international oil and gas company in the world, with exploration and production operations in more than 50 countries.

The Real Downer – Killing Putin’s Friend

But the real downer would be that you had just killed one of the closest and most influential friends of an authoritarian President with well-documented anger management problems and roots in one of the most brutal organizations ever to have graced the planet. That last consideration, I’m thinking, would probably be the one that occupied your thoughts the most while you sat out 48 hours of detention before seeing the magistrate.

It’s difficult to imagine the next CEO of Total being as effective an advocate for Russia as de Margerie. He (or she) won’t have the same personal attachment to the big-money bets on gas producer Novatek (now under sanctions) and the vast Yamal LNG project. Nor will he have same political capital at home to spend on flouting public and political opinion (de Margerie always went the extra mile for Russia, even meeting ex-defense minister Sergei Naryshkin in Paris recently when the latter managed to slip past an E.U. visa ban on him).

What about the drunk snow plow driver?

The driver of the snowplow, Vladimir Martynenko, is at the center of the investigation following allegations, denied by his lawyer, that he was drunk. “At the current time, it has been established that the driver of the snowplow was in a state of alcoholic intoxication,” Tatyana Morozova, an official with the Investigative Committee, Russia’s main investigative agency. As well as questioning the driver of the snowplow, the committee’s spokesman Vladimir Markin said the role of air traffic controllers in the incident is being assessed.

“We lost a true friend of our country,” Putin said

Killed by a drunk snow plow driver, possibly with the connivance of drunk air traffic controllers: a painfully Russian end for the man Putin referred to as “A true friend to our country.”

I just came over this video on the internet and have to say it is pretty awesome, who would have know a 95 Geo Metro would have worked so great for snow removal?

Geo Metro with Wooden Snow Plow

What this video to see what happens when you get 2 feet of snow and you are tired of shoveling.
Nothing like getting a 95 Geo Metro and ratchet strapping a board to the front to make a snow plow. A lot of GEO Metro fans says this video is a proof that a a Geo Metro is more reliable than any Ford that ever existed.

A satire website has many believing excessive snow, and maybe the sky, will be falling.

A winter forecast map that is going viral and suggests above-normal snowfall for most of the country – and “well above-normal” snow for the Mid-Atlantic and New England – comes from a satire website.

Dire Winter Forecast Going Viral

The story has been shared widely across social media, carrying the headline “Meteorologists Predict Record-Shattering Snowfall Coming Soon.” The accompanying map forecasts an unusually snowy winter for about two-thirds of the country, and a corridor of even heavier snow from Virginia to Maine.

You might have seen the following map on your Facebook feed or Twitter stream lately.

In the story on EmpireNews.net, a Dr. Boris Scvediok, doctor of global weather sciences, explains that snowfall is expected to dramatically exceed normal seasonal totals.

The Snowfall is predicted to start by the end of September

“Because this year the snowfall is predicted to start by the end of September or the beginning of October, you can expect to multiply that number by up to five, ten, maybe even twenty times in some areas,” Scvedoik says in the article. “In the worst zones, you could see 50 times the amount of snow you’ve had in the past.”

Is the Dire Winter Forecast Too Dramatic?

If that winter forecast sounds a little too dramatic to be true, it’s because it is. As is often the case with stories from similar hoax news sites, the slightly plausible nature of the headline induced many users to post and repost the link without careful examination,” the myth-busting website Snopes.com wrote about the Empire News story. Anyway this is the Dire Winter Forecast Going Viral. If you are looking for more winter forecasts, we recommend you to check out the Farmers Almanac.